MarsvsMärzWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Mars is a name, März is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Mars” is a name and “März” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,085
“Mars” frequency rank
#621
“März” frequency rank
6706
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mars März
Definition römischer Gott des Krieges der dritte Monat im Jahr

Where the eye mixes Mars and März

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Mars and März follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
Mars
4 ch
März

Look-alike desk: Mars vs März

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Mars is [maʁs] while März is [mɛʁt͡s]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mars is recorded at frequency rank #6,085, classified as aname, pronounced [maʁs]. März is at rank #621, tagged as anoun, pronounced [mɛʁt͡s].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 6706, this pair ranks #1,990,710 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Mars vs März

Shared letters: mr. Private to "Mars": as. Private to "März": .

"Mars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "März" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Marsamrs · marrs · marss · masr · mmars · mras

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Mars" for "März" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mars" is a name and "März" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Mars" or "März"?
"März" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #621 in our German list, against #6,085 for "Mars". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Mars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "März" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,990,710 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Mars" and "März" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mars vs mora". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,990,710 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list